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As one of the largest ISPs in Nepal, Vianet Communications is tasked with delivering stable, consistent bandwidth to a growing base of residential and enterprise customers. Those bandwidth-hungry customers have helped Vianet become one of the largest fixed broadband operators in Nepal, and have also introduced challenges when it comes to managing all that growth coupled with unpredictable network traffic patterns.

The service provider sought a solution that would help them keep apace with the demands of web-scale networking, and turned to Ciena to help manage their growing suite of services. The Ciena 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and 5160 Aggregation Switch enable Vianet to seamlessly manage fluctuating customer capacity demands while retaining flexibility, resiliency and openness – the hallmarks of reliable web-scale networking.

The 6500 platform integrates packet, OTN and WaveLogic Photonics to enable a fully programmable infrastructure tailored to meeting fluctuating customer demands and requirements. High-capacity wire-speed encryption modules optimize bandwidth utilization and protect Vianet’s network by transparently moving all client services. The 5160 switch helps Vianet deliver and aggregate fluctuating quantities of data while adhering to SLAs, one of the most critical customer service challenges for any service provider in the web-scale networking arena.

“As a network provider to Nepal for almost two decades, our customers have come to expect a superior level of service – and it’s something we must continue to provide,” said Prasanna Pokhel, CEO of Vianet. “As we expand our market share, Ciena has made the process of keeping up with changing customer preferences easy, especially with the added software intelligence and visibility of activity of our network.”

Ciena’s offerings are being used to improve intracity connectivity in Kathmandu as well as offer international connectivity between Nepal and other countries. Vianet is taking advantage of the web-scale networking solutions to streamline its operations while also optimizing its footprint, power and capacity. By offering granular control of Vianet’s network, CIena’s solutions will also help the ISP to rapidly rollout new services and maintain visibility and control of them across all transport, switching and packet elements.

“Operators around the world are looking for adaptive networking solutions to help meet the low latency and highly reliable connectivity rates required to support streaming services, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other advanced services,” said Ryan Perera, vice president and general manager of Ciena India. “Ciena’s collaboration with Vianet, our first customer in Nepal, gives them the network it needs to meet consumer demands and remain competitive.”

Web-scale Networking

The idea of Web-scale IT is more than just another 'hot' buzzword or problematic disruption. What started with data center operators has become mainstream thinking in large enterprises, and it's now driving changes in service provider operations, as well. Web-scale tools that allow application development to move quickly have also created some challenges for service provider networks.